Page:The Snake's Pass (Stoker).djvu/202

 I did not come down until the waiter came to tell me that dinner was ready. Dick had evidently waited also, and followed me down. When he came into the room, he said heartily:—

"Hallo! Art, old fellow, welcome back, I thought you were lost," and shook hands with me warmly.

Neither of us seemed to have much appetite, but we pretended to eat, and sent away platesfull of food, cut up into the smallest proportions. When the apology for dinner was over, Dick offered me a cigar, lit his own, and said:—

"Come out for a stroll on the sand, Art; I want to have a chat with you." I could feel that he was making a great effort to appear hearty, but there was a hollowness about his voice, which was not usual. As we went through the hall, Mrs. Keating handed me my letters, which had just arrived.

We walked out on the wide stretch of fine hard sand, which lies westwards from Carnaclif when the tide is out, and were a considerable distance from the town before a word was spoken. Dick turned to me, and said:—

"Art! what does it all mean?"

I hesitated for a moment, for I hardly knew where to begin—the question, so comprehensive and so sudden, took me aback. Dick went on:—

"Art! two things I have always believed; and I won't give them up without a struggle. One is that there are very few things that, no matter how strange or